Catchlight’s 2025 RIA Growth Proficiency Report exposes critical gaps and emerging best practices in marketing-driven organic growth strategies among some of the nation’s top advisory firms.
A new qualitative study released by Catchlight, The 2025 RIA Growth Proficiency Report, finds that some of the top-ranked registered investment advisors (RIAs) are failing to generate organic growth through their marketing functions, despite growing AUM totals.
By analyzing firm processes and surveying CMOs/CGOs from a portion of Barron’s 2024 Top 100 RIAs, the report discovered that all firms fall into four “Growth Marketing Proficiency Levels”. These levels are clearly correlated to actual organic growth outcomes. Only the marketing teams Catchlight classified as Level 3 (“Growth-Focused Explorers”) and Level 4 (“Data-Driven Masters”) contributed to positive organic growth in 2024.
“Firms that still see marketing as a branding exercise, not a revenue engine, are likely leaving serious enterprise value on the table,” said Dan Gilmartin, Catchlight’s Chief Marketing Officer. “The fastest-growing firms made a clear strategic shift. They built centralized lead gen engines, invested in growth-focused talent, and hold marketing accountable for the AUM pipeline.”
Key Findings from the Report:
- Level 1 & 2 RIAs, representing the majority of firms in the study saw no organic growth despite often having large AUMs. These firms tend to silo marketing from sales and measure success through brand metrics, not client acquisition KPIs.
- Level 3 RIAs grew organically by more than 10% on average, by centralizing marketing operations, tracking conversion metrics, and investing 1-3% of revenue in marketing.
- Level 4 RIAs split their marketing functions between organic and M&A-driven growth, with 5%+ marketing spend and deliberate tech stacks.
- A sample budget analysis showed how an $30B RIA increasing marketing investment from 2.4% to 6% of revenue could unlock over $189 million in lifetime revenue, and ROI of 10X. . . on just one year of lead gen investment.
- Marketing’s presence on the executive leadership team emerged as a critical differentiator in firms driving outsized organic growth, aligning firmwide strategy with execution.
Why It Matters
Organic growth has become the holy grail for RIAs, especially as M&A continues its torrid pace and competition for prospects intensifies. Yet this report makes clear that few firms are operationally or culturally equipped to achieve it.
The 2025 RIA Growth Proficiency Report doesn’t just highlight the problem, it shares how firms can evolve from generalists to growth drivers by using example playbooks, metrics, team structures, and tech investments of the industry’s top performers.
“Marketing can’t just make you look good anymore,” said Gilmartin. “It has to both drive growth and prove that it’s getting the job done. This report shares insights for making that shift.”
Download the full report here.
